Copeau and Brook on Acting - CITA | International Centre for

Twentieth Century
Actor Training
Edited by Alison Hodge
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London, and New York
54 R ober t Leach
Bi bl i ogr aphy
Benedetti, Jean (1988) Slanislavsky: A Biography, London.: Methuen.
Bergen, Ronald (1997) Sergel Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict, London: Little, Brown.
Braun, Edward (ed.) (1969) Meyerhold on Theatre, London: Eyre Methuen.
—
(1993) Aleyerhoid: a Revolution in Theatre, London: Methuen.
Garin, Erast (1974)S Melerkhordorn, Moscow: Iskusstvo.
Gladkov, Al eksandr ( 1997) Meyerhold Speaks, Meyerbold Rehearses, Am ster dam :
Harwood.
Gourfinkel, Nina (1963) Vsevolod Meyerhold—Le thailtre thodtral, Paris: Gailimard.
Hoover, Marjorie ( 1974) Meyerbeld — The Ar t of Conscious Theater, Boston, M A:
University of Massachusetts Press,
Ilyinsky, Igor (1961) Sam o sebe, Moscow: Iskussrvo.
Leach, Robert (1989) Vsevolod Meyerbold, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
( 1 9 9 4 ) RevolutionaryTheatre,London:Routiedge.
Meyerhold, VB. (1968) Statti, pierna, recki, beady, 2 vols, Moscow: Islcusstvo.
—
(1976) lierepiska 1E96- 1939, Moscow- Iskussmo.
Picoa-Vallin, Beatrice (1990) Meyerhold, Paris: CNRS.
Rudnitsky, Konsrantin (1981)Meyerhold the Director, Ann Arbor: Ardis.
Schmidt, Paul (ed.) (1980) Meyerhold at Work, Austi n, T X : University o f Texas
Press.
Valenti, M A, (ed.) (1967) Varechi s Meierlhotdom, Moscow: VTO.
van Gyseghem, Andre (1943) Theatre in Soviet Russia, London: Faber and Faber.
Zolotnitskii, David (1976) Zan leatraltnogo okijuibrya, Leningrad: Iskussrvo.
3 J a c q u e s Copeau
The quest for sincerity
John Rudein
The context
Jacques Copeau enter ed professional theatr e as a pr acti ti bner r elatively l ate
in life: he was thirty-two years old when he fi rst became involved i n
directing his own adaptation of Dostoevskis The Brothers Karamazov, and it
was not until two years later that he finally relinquished a promising literary
career for a hazardous theatrical one. In 1913, with the help of friends from
the Nouvelle Revue Franfais (of which he was a founder and the first editor),
he set up the Thatre du Vieux Colombier on the left bank of the Seine. The
building had previously been a variety hall called l'Athenee St-Germain.
Copeau not only re-named it – wit h deliberate simplicity – after the street
in which it sat, but also stripped out its tawdry hangings and gilded plasterwork, and eventually even its proscenium arch.
This raise a nit was typical of his approach to all aspects of French theatre
as he found it, and he had observed more of it than most, having spent eight
years as a drama critic for several Parisian magazines. In review after review
he had pointed out the detrimental effects of the star system and its basis in
commercial exploitation. Such a critique had been of little consequence,
however, and he considered it was now time for remedial action. He called
his self-appointed task 'Dramatic Renovation'. As in the restoration of a
work of art, he intended a peeling away of layer upon layer of over-painting
so as to reveal, say, a Moliere underneath, unembellished and in its original
colours:
It is often said that J intend to break with tradition. The exact opposite
is true. I am seeking to bring works closer to the 'true tradition' by
freeing them from the contributions loaded on them for three centuries
by the official actors [of the Comedie-Prancalsel. The important tradition is the original one.'
Copeau was in a sense, therefore, a pre-modern post-modernist. He did not
believe in
o r artistic movements and cultural revolutions, but in a
renewable, re-discoverable entity, the medium of theatre. I t was not that he
Jacques Copeau 5 7
56 J ohn Rsellin
had an antiquarian interest in the old, but that he considered the theatre
had fallen into such disrepair that it could no longer offer a solid platform
on which new works could be presented. His literary collaborators, many
of whom were uncertain whether t o write novels or plays, were hopeful
that he would provide them wit h a radical but elementary outlet for their
essays in various theatrical genres. Copeau is, indeed, often instanced as the
champion of respect for the text in the production process. S o
early
miser en scene seemed, in fact, to be little more than dramatic readings:
.
but
that,
= rather
o f
h i i ns his view, than actors offering phoney emotions and
nineteenth-century tricks-of-the-trade, the whole gamut of what he called
cabotinage:
a disease that is not only endemic t o the theatre. It's the malady of
insincerity, or rather of falseness. He who suffers from it ceases to be
authentic, to be human. He is discredited, unnatural. a m not only
speaking o f the 'so-called stars', o f those phenomena, those poor
monsters whose deformities are too obvious to require description. I am
speaking of all actors, of the most unimportant of them and of his [or
her) slightest gesture, of the total mechanisation of the person, of the
absolute lack of profound intelligence and true spirituality?
It was to prove, however, a deal easier to strip encrustations off walls than
actors. He chose his company with care, and took the actors away into the
countryside, to his family house, Le Limon, near the tiny village of La Pert&
sous-larre in Seine et Marne to 'de-urbanise', as he called it. There they
rehearsed in the open air wit h daily warm-ups based on 'rhythmical exercises' together with sight-reading and sports such as swimming, fencing and
ball games. In this natural environment he sought a natural simplicity and
spontaneity f rom his performers consisting of authenticity of gesture t o
impulse, well-spoken text and a sense of collective playfulness leading to a
unity of dramatic purpose. By the end of their first season together, this
preparatory work had undoubtedly paid off: Paris was queuing to get into
the Vieux Colombier production of Twelfth Night. I n 1917, wit h Parisian
theatres closed for the duration of the war, Copeau reflected:
Why did I succeed, in the eight months from October 19th 1913 t o
May 1914, in that Paris which is said to be blasé, in forcing on an evergrowing audience a repertoire made up entirely of French and foreign
classical masterpieces and of the boldest plays of the present generation?
It was because I was surrounded by fellow-workers, men and women,
whose pure souls and minds remained unsullied.
3
Regrettably, they did not remain so for much longer: some never returned
from the war, some proved to have concealed their true nature, arid others
Figure 3.1 Copeau: gymnastic class in the garden at Le Limon
Source: Photo from the Marie-Helene Dante collection
left the company. Six years later, in 1923, Copeau remarked to his assistant,
Michel Saint-Denis, after rehearsal:
Did you see them today? I always know in advance what they are going
to do. They cannot get out of themselves; they love only themselves.
They reduce everything to the level of their habits, their clichés, their
affectations. They do not invent anything. I t is all sheer imitation of
imitation.
4
Nevertheless, Copeau was never antipathetic to actors: in fact he became one
himself, copying t he practice of his acknowledged masters — Moliere,
Stanislavsky and Antoine — so that he was able to perceive the performer's
difficulties from the inside out as well as, directorially, from the outside in.
He described the underlying problem of acting as the freezing of the blood':
The actor tells his arm 'Come on, now, arm, go out and make the
gesture', but the arm remains wooden. The 'blood' doesn't flow; the
muscles don't move; the body fights within itself; it's a terrifying thing.
To someone on the outside this sounds like verbalisation or poetry. But
we know, because we have often felt what it means to stand on the stage,
we know that what you are doing is not what you mean to do, that you
58 J ohn Rudlin
meant to move your arm differently and you meant to come over to the
audience with ease and warmth, and instead you're standing there like a
Yet even worse than such paralysis, in Copeau's view, was the over-facility of
an actor such as David Garrick, who o'n a visit to Paris once sat in a drawing
1
- through a catalogue of emotions without, seemingly, feeling anything
run
himself.
I n a preface t o an edition of Diderot's Paradoxe stir le Comedien,
0
Copeau
wrote:
0
1
the actor.. .applies his monstrous sincerity to being what he is nor— not
1
to expressing what he does not feel, but to feeling the make-believe.
1
a What upsets Hamlet the philosopher, as much as his other hellish
n apparitions, is the diverting of natural faculties in the human being to a
d fantastic use.
,
The actor takes the risk of losing his...soul...which, having been too
f
o often upset by acting, too often carried away and offended by imaginary
passions, contorted by artificial habits, feels irrelevant before reality. The
r
whole being of the actor carries the stigmata of a strange relationship
t
with the human world. When he returns among us, he looks as i f he
h
were coming from another world.
e
a An actor's profession tends to pervert him. It's the consequence of an
m instinct which pushes a man to abandon himself and live a pretence.
u And consequently• it is a profession that people despise; they fi nd it
s
dangerous, immoral, and they condemn it for its mystery. This pharie saical attitude, which has not been eliminated in even the most tolerant
m societies, reflects a profound idea. That is, that the actor is doing somee thing forbidden: he is playing with his humanness and making sport of
it .
n
6
t
Copeau continually demanded personal sincerity from his actors as an antiodote to the cabotinage which continued to dominate the boulevards and the
fComedie Frangaise (whose Conservatoire, incidentally, offered the only availfable actor training in France before the opening of the Vieux Colombier
rSchool). He sometimes stayed behind after rehearsal to watch the carpenters
iworking on stage. What they did seemed purposeful, rhythmical, incidenetally sincere. Whereas t he actions o f the actors i n rehearsal had been
nunnatural and forced — lacking in a sure tradition of craftsmanship.
Between 1917 and 1919 Copeau was able to re-assemble some of his
d
company i n New York. Af t er the Great War, he re-opened the Vieux
s
Colombier in Paris in 1920, but with some reluctance. By this time he was
i
n
c
l
u
d
Jacques Copal:, 5 9
only too aware that he had' compromised his quest for theatrical renovation
by putting, as the French say, the can before the oxen. What was needed was
not remedial work with established actors during rehearsals, but preliminary
work i n an attached school where t he problem o f sincerity could be
addressed before the protective devices of cabotinage became • ingrained: a
separate place in which to educate, rather than train (or re-train), actors from
the earliest possible age. Such performers would be then free of the egotism
required by the star system and would have their allegiance to an ensemble
emergent from their common apprenticeship. Copeau called this unity of
spirit and cormnonalty of technique 'Chow?, which translates roughly as
both 'choir' and 'chorus'. I n order to get on wit h the business of 'dramatic
renovation', however, he had had t o giv e t he opening o f the Vieux
Colombier Theatre precedence over its School.
In 1915, whilst the Vieux Colombier was closed, he had visited Edward
Gordon Craig in his school in Venice (also shut for the duration of the war).
He noted:
•
In founding a school, Craig does not feel the same need as I do, does not
pursue the same goal. He does not even pursue any immediate goal. He
is not a theatre director. He is not trying to form a company of actors to
fulfi l the requirements of a repertoire. The actor does not interest him
[but only) his theory of the tiber-Marionette'.
7
Craig told him that he had refused the directorship of the Theatre des Arts
in Paris unless the building could be closed to the public for ten to fifteen
years whilst he prepared pupils for a renewed art of the theatre:
You will ask how it is that I did not follow Craig's advice and open a
School before opening a Theatre. I did not do it because I was not able
to do it, because I had neither the authority nor the means to do so. If,
in October 1913, I had proposed the founding of a School, no-one
would have listened to me. C r a i g was being, logical. If I had been so,
I should have remained in oblivion. I was deeply convinced that it was
imperative to exist first of all. We had to familiarise the public with our
utopian ideas. We had to give proof of what a company of actors, mostly
novices, could give in a year's work in common, under direction. S o ,
it is true that I started by making a concession to life's demands But it
was through caution, not ignorance. T h e idea of the School and the
idea of the Theatre are one and the same; they were conceived together
and-described as such in my Attempt at Dramatic Renovation.
8
The Vieux Colombier School proper opened in December 1921 after an
initial try-out period between December 1920 and June 1921, and a
number of short-lived experiments previous t o that, both• in France and
America. The director was the novelist and playwright, Jules komains, and
60 John Rid/in
the principal teacher was Copeau's aide, confidante and amante, Suzanne Bing,
who was up t o that point a leading actress wit h the company. Copeau
himself was rarely seen at the School, except for giving a semi-public lecture
course, but was able to monitor progress via his association wit h Bing. I n
1922 he took over the directorship of the School himself, but was still
prevented by a punishing production and performance schedule from being
more than an occasional presence. Although the School had three divisions,
it was the 'apprentice group' which more and more dominated his horizon.
It consisted initially of a group of six pupils,
twenty
apprenticed
of three years A t the end of
9 o f years
b oold,
t h
s e xfor ea minimum
s ,
that
time
the
intention
was
for
a
new,
even
younger
group to be initiated.
f
r
o
m
The
key
course
was
'Dramatic
Instinct',
taken
by
Suzanne
Bing. Copeau's
f o u r t e e n
only
brief
to
her
was
to
follow
her
own
instinct,
wit
h
the
proviso
that the
t
o
students spoke no dialogue before the third year. At the' end of 1923 he
summed up the project so far:
The first year is particularly concerned wit h the acquisition of fundamental concepts; the second wit h a common general and vocational
cultural development; the t hird concentrates on specific abilities and
individual excellence: performance work is undertaken for the first time.
The teaching is based on education of the body (musical, gymnastic, acrobatic, dancing, games o f strength and skill), wi t h a progressive
initiation into craft skills (drawing, modelling, decorative art, costume
Jacquescopeau 6 1
this piece, amongst others, intensified Copeau's dilemma over his future
priority — to devote his time to the school or the company:
A group of pupils come to the front of the stage. They produce, despite
their masked faces, a vision of a strand and of fisher-folk peering out
upon a stormy sea. Their bodies create not alone their own emotion, but
by a subtle fugue the heave of the water. A rowboat comes tip. I t is
r created by two actors in a rhythmic unison of propulsion. They leave
their boat and mount the stairs to the apron. They have news of the
drowning o f a comrade: the news transfigures the group. The scene
shifts to what is an interior of a fisher cottage. The wife and children
• await the master. The friends come in with the tragic tidings.
What was to be the future of this little group? In a year's time, some might
have been subsumed into the Vieux Colombier company, others would have
had to' make their own way. Little by little the intensity of their collective
experience would have been dispersed and diluted and Copeau would have
had to continue in rehearsal his daily struggle wit h the 'problem of the
actor'. On 15 May 1924, two weeks after the first semi-public presentation
of the work of the apprentice actors from the School, Jacques Copeau did a
remarkable thing, for which he has often been castigated and rarely sufficiently lauded; he closed the Vieux Colombier which had seemed by now to
be a success established en permanence. He himself now acted instinctively and
wit h no forward planning:
and props), singing, both choral and solo, exercises in dramatic expression
(mask-work, physical games, physiognomy, mimicry), then to improvisa-
tion (plastique and with dialogue), to elocution, diction and declamation, to •
general education and t o dramatic theory (laws o f dramatic expression,
study of the great epochs, scenic arts and crafts).
Ultimately, free play gives way t o small-scale productions for which
people are left entirely to their own devices, as creators and workers.
Working and living communally, not excluding specialisation according
to individual capabilities, has rapidly made a real little company.. .with
healthy ideals, a solid professional working basis, a remarkable esprit de
corps and self-sufficiencylo
Here is an example of how one of the 'small-scale productions' emerged. As
a development of the 'Follow My leader' game, masked students would take
the expressive focus in turn, wit h the rest of the masks responding sympathetically — though not necessarily reduplicating what the lead mask was
doing. Often no theme would be given and intuitive discoveries made
through initially abstract improvisation • led t o simple situations, such as
that of village women in a wash-house gossiping whilst working. One such
involved the gathering of a crowd to welcome home a ship. The quality of
persuaded that our compromises with the times would produce nothing
fertile, tired of standing still and having rejected the 'boulevard' theatre
since 1913, we resolved t o reject the so-called 'avant-garde' theatre,
which is already infected by counterfeits and lies. At the end of 1924,
we decided to risk everything. We wanted this 'renovation' that we had
tried for so long to define and to understand, to at least mean something
for ourselves. We started over again. We turned backwards in order to
check what we knew, learn what we did not know, experiment wit h
what we vaguely felt, no longer proceeding without our sense of vocation, doing something that was not true, but building, moderately but
purely
12
By September of that year he was established in the Chateau de Morteuil, 10
kilometres f rom Beaune i n the heart o f Burgundy, wit h the apprentice
group, t6gether with four young professional actors from the company and
their families, plus two more performers living nearby, one technician, and a
poet.
The 'chateau' was merely a large, imposing farm house situated in a damp
hollow'Mt was filthy, had no electricity and the stoves did not work. Copeau
himself was mentally and physically exhausted, suffering the first effects of
62 J ohn Rudlin
an undiagnosed and debilitating disease. But there he was, wit h his furniture, his library, his own (extended) family, t he contents of the Vieux
Colombier costume store, and an excited coterie of dramatic voyagers ready
to discover a new world of theatrical initiative, 'exactly like old man Noah
on his ark, surrounded by a crowd o f young faces quizzing my feeble
look s '.
13 On 4 November Le Patron, as he was universally known, brought them all
•
together
for an introductory talk. Someone noted, down what he said:
• He explained why he had come and that he had abandoned everything
in order to do so. He said he regarded it as his last chance in life and
that we should realise the responsibility that placed us under; our sense
of that responsibility would show itself in a perfectionist attitude t o
work and a dignified life style. He laid great emphasis on the morality
of the artist and the discipline needed to aspire to it. He had not obliged
anyone t o come: we were all volunteers and would have t o accept
poverty as a condition of discipleship. There would be no question of
erasing o u r personalities, rat her o f disciplining, managing a n d
conserving our individuality. We would need respect for others, discretion and deference; above all, sincerity, charity, intelligence and good
humour. He himself was not infallible, but he Would never do anything
knowing it to be unjust. We would never bore him. His powers were all
coming back to him. He went on to explain how these general principles would be worked out in practical detail in the rules for the school
and for the house. He could only work if these rules were observed, since
freedom would only come from regulation and observance.I
4
It is wort h pausing to appreciate the courageous admixing of family and
working lives, the proposed kibbutzim-style attempt to live, work and play
ensemble. The high moral tone, however, reflected Copeau's own recent reembracing o f t h e Cat holic f a i t h a t a practically Jansenist lev el.
Unfortunately, his personal spiritual crisis was still deepening, the chateau
was damp and unhealthy and the funds expected to underpin the enterprise
did not materialise. At the moment of nadir, five months later in February
1925, Copeau dissolved the community. Nevertheless, a few of the actors
proposed to stay on at theinown expense and, together with those members
of the apprentice group that were part of Copeau's own extended family, to
form a troupe that would perform in the villages and towns of Burgundy. It
was, however, to be a training company and not a school that occasionally
performed. Nevertheless, Le Patron became gradually drawn into its work
and took over the reinsin June of that year, acting, directing and providing
texts, whilst Suzanne Bing and others such as Jean Daste were again largely
responsible f or the training programme. There were happier times and
happier climes as the company, now named Les Copiaus after the local dialect
pronunciation of to Patron's name, moved from the misty hollow to a large
Jacques Cop eau 6 3
house on a sunny hillside in the nearby village of •Pernand-Vergelesses. The
renewed spirit of the Copiaas, he wrote, stemmed from their education in the
'dramatic instinct', which continued to be based on
a conscientious examination of the principles of their craft and on a
personal investigation o f the elements o f dramatic creation. Their
teachers guide them towards those innermost discoveries that are neeessary to the possession of any technique. Their sense of discipline consists
of avoiding nothing, of never pretending, of never expressing or even
thinking o f anything that they cannot personally and authentically
think and express. They apply themselves to finding, principles wit hin
themselves, t o implanting in their bodies, hearts and minds a direct
experience of the laws of theatre and the feeling for their necessity.
Thus, they are brought back. to a naive state that is not an artificial or
literary attitude, but is their natural position before a world of possibilities where nothing is corrupted by habits of imitation, nor perverted by
an acquired virtuosity. T h a t is where they stand, and they aspire no
further at the moinent. Far from priding themselves on their sufficiency,
they remain at the starting point. I n my opinion this is a positive
conquest.
15
They played Moliere farces, and adaptations by Copeau of Goldoni and Lope
de Rtteda They also developed t heir own original pieces, increasingly
depending on the new masks for cOmmedia dell'arte which they had devised.
Playing fi rst at local fetes and fairs, they gradually began t o establish a
national and international reputation. Perhaps their most typical piece was
Elllusion since, although ostensibly written by Copeau after Corneille and
Fernando de Rojas, i t contained large amounts of material culled f rom
improvisation. The text reveals the extent to which their performance style
was interpenetrated by a 'naive', albeit idealised, representation of their individual and collectiVe lives. I n the prologue, Copeau playing The Actor
virtually as himself, ruminating on the 'freezing of the blood', was joined on
stage by The Actress, played by Suzanne Bing:
ACTRESS: I f we remain silent too long, i f we remain too long i n the
contemplation of our thoughts, shall we retain the power of some day
giving birth to the Illusion? I am only an actress. I don't care very much
for reality. I don't like myself very much. I don't wish to be invaded by
everything I am. My passions, my desires, my jealousy, my deceits; give
me tack Comedy so its fire will consume them and purify me.
(On this last line Maigne [Copeau's daughter, Marie-Helene] enters.)
ACTOR: I was t ry ing t o invent something.. .a manner of acting, f ull of
thwarted movements, of young faces, of love and music, and for you, a
cfraracter, overflowing wit h poetry which would make you love me as I
love you. But I am haunted by nothing but sombre images...
acciesCopeau 65
64 J ohn Rid/in
(Maiene approaches the Actor.)
MAIENE: Good morning.
ACTOR! (Kissing her) Good morning, my child.
MICHEL (Saint-Denis, Copeau's nephew): (Entering.) Good morning.
ACTOR: Good morning, youth.
*WILLARD [jean Villard, f ormer Vieux Colombier actor): (Entering.) Are
you ready, Actor? The young people are waiting.
ACTOR: What do these young people want of me?...
MAIENE: To be what we are.
ACTRESS: Actors who live by Comedy, free and poor, from morning t o
night, kneading the dough of their craft with their own hands.
ACTOR: My young companions, my young companions, are you going to
give me back the courage necessary for forming a world each day out of
nothing, and hanging it above reality, a world which falls apart even as
it is being created? Wi l l you have the strength, the constancy, the
saintly humility? I had folded up my hope. My memories had faded
away. Even the loveliest of them. W h y do you come to make my
bead swim, like birds in a garden in the month of May ?
16
After the prologue the action began wit h a youth called Petit Pierre (a
derivative of the Pedrolino/Pierrot figure of the cormn
the
- e company
d i a d toe escape
l l ' athe
r twrath
e ) of his old father. Once on stage he is able
to
j join
o iin because
n i nthegdrama is improvised and there are no lines to learn.
However, the father is in the audience — is their only audience, in fact. He
watches his son — in the part of Calixte — fall in love with Melibee and win
her (with supernatural assistance!). This all happens whilst Melibee's father,
• Plat e, is away. When he returns, the spectator/father leaves and the actors
stop the play and argue as to the continuation of the plot. They decide that
Plebere should deal wit h Calixte in a traditionally heavy-handed manner;
the illusion is about to begin again when the father, who has not-left after
all, rushes on stage and lectures P l a t e about the undesirability of parental
harshness. Father. and son are reconciled and go home; The actors pack up
their effects, put them in their cart and leave singing. the Copiaus' theme
song.
The mood of the piece was almost whimsical, yet, in line with the desire
not to have actors express any sentiments they had not themSelves experienced, Copeau (Plebere) was making deliberate reference to the courtship of
• his own daughter, Maiene (albit e), by Jean Daste (Petit Pierre). Was this
incorporation of reality into illusion the ultimate resolution of the quest for
sincerity? Copeau called the piece 'pure theatre', neither a drama nor a
comedy, but a theatre game. The Times of London noted:
You feel as you watch them that they are indeed a community de famille
et damitil who are earnestly bent on re-discovering the childhood o r is
it the second childhood? — of the theatre. An odd quest that would soon
become tedious if pursued at length; but if we must have 'pure theatre',
may it always come with the grace and polish of Pernand-Vergelesses.
17
This astute appraisal presaged yet another severance in Copeau's career. The
quest was not 'pursued at length'; the underlying tension between his desire
to have Les Copiaus train for two-thirds of the year and their desire t o
Figure 3.2 Jacques Copeau as Plebete in L'Illusion
66 John Rudlin
perform as muc h as possible, capitalising o n t heir new-found acclaim,
became t oo great. Rat her t han compromise his vision o f t he Vieux
Colombier School any further, he suddenly broke with the company in June
1929. Led by Michel Saint-Denis, the Copiaus became La Compagnie des
Quinze and toured Europe with great success until the mid 1930s. The last
phase of Copean's career as freelance director, playwright and man of letters
does not concern us here since he undertook no further actor training.
Th e t raining
Discovering dramatic principles wi t h i n oneself, embracing t he naïve
without intellectual reservation, developing an'authenticity of gesture to
emotional impulse — how did Copeau attempt co unfreeze the blood of his
apprentice actors without their becoming insincere? Here are some notes on
some of the methods used by him, and by Suzanne Bing and others at his
instigation. , •
Breath and text
Breathing, because it is an involuntary, essentially natural, life-sustaining
activity, was for Copeau the primtem mobile in his quest for gestural sincerity
and vocal concord. The taking o f voluntary control o f the involuntary
activity, provided a resolution of the 'monstrous sincerity::
Breathing controls everything,
A voice which does not breathe becomes dull, collapses on itself and
becomes sad; It flounders like someone drowning. It is dra.gged along by
the text. I t fails to dominate i t and cannot articulate it either. I t is
breathing Which ensures that our sensibility has the faculty to move in
any direction. On it depends natural laughter and heartfelt emotion.
From it comes nobility and authority, which give weight to one's presence Inadequate 'breathing creates disorder. Vigorous breathing brings
freedom. •
Reading out loud requires perpetual tours de force of breathing. Above
all, when a dramatic text demands constant switching from one tone to
another, froth one movement to another, froth one character td another,
to different ages and sexes.
One has continually t o get a grip -on oneself, t o master one's own
sincerity, change attitude and tonality, posture and rhythm, never let
JacquesCopeau 6 7
oneself get wrapped up' lrit he text. The gymnastics, say, of the playwright.
Breathing makes lightness possible, which is one of the supreme virtues
of the artist. That is to say that even in paroxysm one should not go to
the end of one's powers: leave a little margin which allows the supposition that one could, if one had wanted, have gone further, that there is
still a reservoir, a reserve. There is a sort of distinctiveness and reverence
, whic h is dictated by taste and made possible by lightness.
- In this lightness- there can be found a certain faculty of skimming over
the text, a coming together of the eyes and of the mind in order to be
always ahead of the tongue. A well-trained reader gives the impression
of knowing the text by heart.
One does not know it by heart That would be too easy. And it would be
much less effective — one is saying by heart many things which one is
understanding at that very moment, which one has just discovered and
which are still fresh in one's mout h.
18
During his first attempt at 'de-urbanisation' in the garden of ,Le Limon,
Copeau, as we have seen, separated movement from text during the daily
warm-up before rehearsal. Up to two hours were devoted to sight-reading
out loud. Being himself a sought-after public reader, Copeau returned
repeatedly to this exercise in his later schools. Often he would send two
actors off with a non-dramatic work of literature, one to read and one to
listen. This not only obliged the listener to listen with personal intent (and
not just for their cues), but also to develop a critical faculty by which they
learnt from the other's mistakes. For the reader, the alertness and speed of
reaction required, often with the eyes reading a line ahead of what was actually being vocalised, helped break down habits of phrasing and inflection.
And for both participants there was the slightly discomfiting knowledge
that shortly it would be time to swap roles. The selection of suitable texts
also extended the range of the participants' cultural awareness:
Our graduated exercises in reading out loud, at fi rst sight, pursue a
double goal of increasing intellectual fl exibility at the same t ime as
perfecting vocal articulation. I n order to read well, whilst at the same
time paying attention to diction and to the register of one's voice, one
needs continual mental alertness, never to 'let oneself go', to understand
quickly and t o express oneself wit h precision. Thus actors have the
possibility of avoiding their natural penchant for falling int o readymade inflexions, and also avoiding the difficulty they usually have, that
of a\slowness, a certain laziness in getting into the spirit of the text,
68 J ohn Rudlin
something which obliges the director, during the first rehearsals, to premasticate all their dialogue for them
A good sight-reading, devoid of affectation, that is the open ground on
which to build a healthy interpretation (of a role).
19
Nat ural gymnastics
In referring to the interplay of mind and voice as 'gymnastic', Copeau was
only too aware that the oral (and aural) training of sight-reading was the
adduction of the literary man. A physical complement was needed. As a
stop-gap at Le Limon, he tried to balance verbal exercises with physical ones.
As noted above, daily.rhythrtical limbering was taken by one of the actors,
Roger Karl, and sporting activities were encouraged. What Copeau ult imately sought, however, was not just a means of attaining a desirable level
of fitness, balance, control and physical confidence, but a physical training
which would be integral t o the development of the actor as instrument.
After a visit t o Jacques Dalcroze in 1915, he tried t o adopt the latter's
system of eurythmics. But by 1921, after experimenting with three different
teachers, he decided that it was 'another language, a speciality and consequently a deformation. IBulrhythrnics leads t o a personal idolatry of the
body . '
method
of 'natural gymnastics', designed primarily to develop strength and
2
flexibility
for sporting rather than dramatic activities. However, thanks to
°
monitor
Jean
Dorc y ,
E v
needs:
21
t
h
e
e n t
m
u ael t h o d
At afirst
g
d these
u aexercise sessions were poorly attended and quite limited.
l y rDorcy
finally
complained that they were doing nothing but jumping,
lt l y
and did his best to expand the program. As class leader in the absence of
b
c
h M.e Moine
[Hebert's instructor]. Dorcy made sure also that students did
a
m
e the exercises they did best. Some of these exercises were:
e more than
g
e
a leaping over obstacles, balance-bars. Out-door work at St.
V marching,
ri
e once
d a week was more varied and rigorous, including fogging,
Cloud
te high-jump contests, push-ups, t hrowing a medicine ball, obstacle
o
u courses, military endurance exercises, and even some trapeze work .
tx 22
When
work began again in November 1923, i t was largely Dorcy who
h
C
worked
wit h the group. A l l noted improved agility and fl exibility and
e
o
balance, acquiring a 'relaxed tonality through work with solid obstacles'.
sl
t
u
Later,
23 in Burgundy, it was Jean Daste who took over the role of monitor;
d
e
n
o
later
still Daste's own scion, Jacques Lecoq, used the Hebert method in his
tschool
s
'
m
in Paris: 'pull, push, climb, walk, run, jump, lif t , carry, attack,
1
defend,
swim These actions trace a physical circuitry in sensitive bodies in
b
which
emotions are imprint ed. '
i
24
e
r
S
c
h
Jacques Cop eau 6 9
Lecoq himself came froth a
larger
- claim for the potential of the method than Copeau would have believed
possible.
s p o rHe
t i would
n g certainly have found such a development of it desirable.
b a c k g r o u n
d ,
Corporeal
music
a was na mystery
d to Copeau, which is perhaps why he continually sought
Music
h
i
to incorporate it insthe training. Students at the Vieux Colombier School
i
learned
choralsand solo singing, reading music and the basics of an individual
p instrument.
e
r
However,
h
Copeau d i d not want any part o f t he
instruction
a
p to be
s an island, a specialism. He intended music to be integrated
with
a movement studies, primarily wit h the dance course given by Mlle
Lamballe.
25
sporadically. Mlle Lamballe worked wit h the students on classical ballet
T h i s and exercises, as well as steps like the pas de bourree, saut du chat,
positions
cslides,
l a fads, and dances like the minuet and gavotte. It was Suzanne Bing, as
susual,
s who took on the task of applying such dance concepts to dramatic
She often held her course in Musique Corporelle
wexpression.
a
class, discussing and working
as t ime and duration,
b wit
a hl such
l e concepts
t
sl j u s t a f t e r
space, shape, force, speed, volume, intensity and weight .
b
e
26 Bing began by focusing on breathing and fi lling a particular duration
gwit hubreath. Next she added movements, to be accomplished in the same
nduration. These simple exercises grew into movements on beats, with more
i complex assignments given to fi ll time sequences with improvised dialogue
nor mimed action. She then had the students analyse and explore the relationl ships between emotional quality of a gesture and its time of preparation —
afirst wit h breathing, t hen movement, using various parts o f the body,
t stressing imagination, continuity and unity of direction. This method of
developing a gesture was then continued in ensemble movement and in
e
movement sequences. Later they played 'Follow my Leader' i n order t o
N
become instinctive at performing actions together wit hin the same t ime
osequence.
v One of Bing's exercises was to begin an action and then interrupt it wit h
ea brief movement. The students then worked t o juxtapose t wo different
mtempos — the arms keeping the beat whilst the feet walked in a circle on the
bmeasure, accompanying themselves wi t h t he voice instead o f music.
of everyday phenomena were found to illustrate different tempos:
eExamples
r
a a sewing machine as quick, percussive, a lift as sustained. Early in the New
nYear rhythms were introduced based on regular intervals as exemplified in
drawing, poetry and prose, architecture and music. The group clapped
d
different rhythms, imit at ing each other, t hen put t ing poly-rhythms
wtogether. Clapping was then replaced by simple verbal exclamation —
a for example. Subsequently they played musical charades, using rhythms
s whose musical qualities were simple and clear — then afterwards they had to
g
i
v
e
n
s
o
70 J ohn Rudan
guess what the music was. They discussed the effects of quality, duration,
silence, and made up rhythmic examples to illustrate each.
Group compositions were performed in silence, then with accompanying
piano music — an addition whic h highlighted plastic rather than t he
dramatic qualities. These were followed by a study of dynamics — visualising
loudness and softness in space for example. Eventually these exercises were
used in the creation of dances. Exercises in 'taldng possession of space' were
also an important element, to which was added expansion in sound and the
exploration of shapes — individually and in a group. Later they did exercises
related to obedience to a particular rhythm, standing in a circle and using a
ball thrown in patterns to reinforce the concept. Then came study of spoken
phrases and the analysis of differing meanings conveyed through the use of
pause. I n application they worked wit h three different types of phrases:
spoken, in movement and musical — discussing the different means of differentiating between phrases, accents, silence, contrasts. Fo r movement
phrasing, elements to use might be: changes in direction, weight, duration,
level, using different parts of the body A complex exercise in the use of
space exploring phrases and sentences was performed with three groups: the
first ran and stopped in position; the second group took a complementary
position; the third group completed the figure. They then tried the exercise
with their eyes closed.
Thus Bing utilised the study of a particular style of movement — ballet —
to help students discover more general characteristics of style that they
could apply to their own work. Using an approach somewhat reminiscent of
Laban and modern dance exploration, Bing stressed both analysis and play.
Work was often facilitated by music on the piano, accompanying exercises
such as the mirror game or the miming of opening a door. The students
discovered the difference between choreographed movement to music, or
dance, and that which is performed with an internal rhythm and no music,
i.e. corporeal mime. Music gave their movements greater purity/and abstraction, but often blurred the dramatic sense. Bing was sometime's
the
to bconcentrate
on pure movement and their insistence
- bstudents'
o t h e inability
r e d
y
on using anecdotal material. They sometimes lost sight of an objective she
had proposed, or did not experiment enough with abstract concepts. She
noted, incidentally, that Copeau's occasional presence seemed to paralyse the
students —a freezing of the blood again!
27
Neut ralit y
'The point of departure of an expression. The state of repose, of calm, of relaxation or decontraction, of silence or simplicity.' •
To start from silence and calm. That is the first point. An actor must
know how to be silent, to listen, respond, keep still, begin a gesture,
Jacques Cop eau 7 1
develop it, return to stillness and silence, wit h all the tones and half
tones that those actions imply.28
Such a state of neutrality should not be construed as being negative, it has
nothing to do wit h being neutered, I t means simply 'Putting oneself in a
state of readiness' (Dicontractien prialable).
• Muc h more is known today about relaxation- than in the 1920s and to
offer a résumé of Copeau's practice would be of academic interest only. Were
he working today, I am personally convinced that he would borrow from the
disciplines of Yoga and T'ai Chi, provided that they did not leave a stylistic
imprint on the performer. Suffice, then, to say that from a state of maximum
possible relaxation in the whole body (i.e. one i n which phasic muscles
receive no unnecessary support f rom voluntary ones), Copeau's students
learned to isolate energy in different parts of themselves. That area was then
encouraged to lead a particular expression.
used
29 Ttohexpress
e
bastonishment,
a c k , disquiet, grief-strickenness, anger, remorse,
courageousness
or the regaining of hopefulness. The face (as simply another
f
o
r
part xof the
e
a body)
m pwas lused
e to, express subtle gradations of emotion which the
rest of the
w
a apprentice
s group tried to guess by name. This exercise was not
meant to emulate Garrick's party tricks — the return to the neutral state
between expressions was considered crucial to the honest development of the
next intention. Af t er one such session i n silent improvisation Copeau
concluded that:
There are two kinds of manifestations in an actor's playing: discontinuous .manifestations t hat seem intentional, phoney, theatrical, and
continuous manifestations that give an impression of modesty and
internal sincerity, of real life and power. Continuity and slow pace are
conditions of powerful and sincere play ing.
3°
Slow-motion was henceforward incorporated in the training. As usual, it was
Bing who developed the detail of the exercise. After the state of decontraction (which is physical), she proposed mental states: pre-formation of the
expressive idea; suspense, i.e. not immediately giving in to the impulse;
then attack, i.e. a complete commitment of the body to the pre-formation;
then the return to the neutral state.
As an aid to the discovery of the neutral state, the neutral mask has been
developed by Jean Dastes, Jacques Lecoq and others from Copeau's use of the
'noble' mask, outlined below. I have sometimes had students approach me
to 'borrow -some of those neutral masks for the show we're doing'. The
whole point of such masks is that they are not expressive and have no
performative validity. They afford a tool wit h which to deepen an understanding of the neutral state, which in itself is only a foundation and no
longer visible as part of the expressive edifice of performance. The absence
72 J ohn Run/in
of such a foundation is precisely why Copeau wanted a school attached to
his theatre, but separate from it.
The noble mask
Copeau became aware of the potential of the mask, both in actor training
and, ultimately, in performance during his visit to Craig. It made its appearance in his work almost by accident —whilst rehearsing a scene at the Vieux
Colombier he despaired of an actress who found herself repeatedly physically
blocked during a scene and unable to move — a literal freezing of the blood.
Copeau took his handkerchief and covered her face, noting that her body
was immediately released as an expressive instrument. It was her face which
had been making all the effort. This experiment was immediately put to
work in the School, using stockings as well as pieces of cloth. Jean Daste
later noted:
When the face is masked or hidden, one is less timid, feels freer, more
daring and insincerity is quickly apparent. T h e mask demands both
a simplification and an extension of gestures; something forces you to go
to the limit of the feeling being expressed.
3
An invaluable
tool had been discovered t o aid the work on neutrality.
I _
Eventually the students made their own 'noble' masks based on maquettes of
their own faces, modelled in clay to remove individual characteristics and
regularise the features Copeau called them 'noble' after the expressionless
masks worn by the aristocracy up t ill the eighteenth century when wishing
to pass incognito in the street. In order to enhance rather than interfere with
the neutral state, a ritual was developed for putting on t h e
c
m a (a)
s k We
: l l seated in the middle of the chair, not leaning 'against the back
of the seat. Legs spaced to ensure perfect balance. Feet flat on the
32
ground.
(b) Stretch the left arm horizontally forward, shoulder high; it holds
the mask, hanging by its elastic. The right hand also stretches out,
thumb holding t he chin, index and second fi nger seizing t he
opening of the mouth.
(c) Stretch out the elastic over the top of the head and put the mask on
the forehead.
(d) Lower the mask over the face.
(e) Simultaneously inhale, close the eyes and shoe the mask.
In all this, only the arms and hands are active. They carry out the
small movements necessary to fasten the mask on the face, arrange
the hair, verify the proper adjustment of the elastic, so that the
mask will cling well and hold without slackness.
33
Jacques Cop ran 7 3
(0 Simultaneously, breathe and place forearms and hands o n t he
thighs. The arms, as well as the elbows, touch the torso, fingers not
quite reaching the knees.
(g) Open the eyes, inhale, then simultaneously close the eyes,. exhale
and bend the head forward. While bending the head, the back
becomes slightly rounded. I n this phase, arm, hands, torso, and
head are completely relaxed.
(h) It is here, in this position, that the clearing of the mind occurs.
Repeat mentally or utter, if this helps, during the necessary time (2,
5, 10, 25 seconds): ' I am not t hink ing of anything, I am not
thinking of anything I f , through nervousness, or because the
heart was beating too strongly, the 'I am not thinking of anything'
is ineffective, concentrate on the blackish grey, steel, saffron, blue,
or other shade found inside the eye, and extend it indefinitely in
thought: almost always, this shade blots out conscious thought.
(i) Simultaneously, inhale and sit upright, then exhale and open your
eyes.
Now the masked actor, sufficiently recollected, can be inhabited by
characters, objects, thoughts; he is ready to perform dramatically.
When the actor is not seated but standing, nothing changes;
however (see h), the back should not be rounded, for the weight of
the head would draw the torso forward.
All these phases are for beginners. Later, the technique may be
altered. But.. it should never be neglected.
34
Once 'in' the noble mask, students were given initially very simple transactions to explore, simultaneously and without reference to each other. Words
or phrases -were called out and t he students, after pre-forming and
suspending the impulse, would let the mask 'attack', mov ing i n slow
motion to an intuitively felt physical position which expressed this word or
phrase. They then held that position for a brief moment t o confirm the
impression before returning to a de-contracted, neutral stance.
The first exercises were composed of sets of tasks dealing with the exploration of the five senses. Then the students were asked t o let the mask
handle imaginary objects, making them as concrete and specific as possible
by exploring weight, texture, shape and function. Next, they had to experience certain physical sensations such as fatigue, heat and cold. Then they
were asked to explore actively the five senses more fully, followed by an exercise in which they were deprived of one sense, such as being deaf. Next came
simple physical actions such as throwing, lifting and pulling objects. Finally
they were required to give bodily expression to some simple emotions.
The second set of exercises involved making combinations from the first
set. For example, a simple emotion was combined wit h a simple physical
activity, or an exploration of one of the senses was paired with the handling
JacquesCopeau 7 5
74 J ohn Rucllin
of an imaginary object. In a third set of exercises, the students were asked to
physically represent inanimate objects. Following this came the fi nal and
most difficult exercises; the embodiment of moral and abstract ideas such as
'glory' or 'strength'.
35From these silent exercises the students went. on t o non-verbal sound
explorations in the mask. The voice was used 'not in speaking or in singing
but in a sort of primitive gamut of autopoetic sounds. T h e voice, at the
beginning, is a kind of arabesque like the castanets of the classic Spanish
dance.'
gibberish
language which have all the phrasing and inflection of real speech,
36
but
do
not
turn a physical improvisation into a word-driven one.
T h e
Copeau
perceived
spontaneity as another key t o' collective creativity.
s e
Working
in
this
case
without allowing time for premeditation, he would
s o
call out a word such as 'Paris!', 'Storm!', 'Goal', et c The (unmasked)
u n
students 'immediately, without an instant of reflection, had to react by one
d
s
or more
gestures, by a state of being, by a sequence of movements, etc.'.
w
37
e
Play
and games
r
e
Such
exercises in spontaneity bring me to the last area of Copeau's pedagogical
l practice that there is space t o consider, which is arguably one that
should
have been discussed first, since without i t the spirit of élan and
a
freedom
of expression which enlightened the work of the apprentice group
t
cannot be understood. lat he first draft prospectus for the School he wrote:
e
r
It is through play, in which children imitate more or less consciously all
d human activities and sentiments, whic h is f or them a natural path
e towards artistic expression and for us a living repertoire of reactions of
v the most authentic kind - it is through play that we wish to construct,
e not a system, but an educational experience. We seek to develop the
child, without deforming him or her, through the means which the
l
o child provides, towards which he or she s ens es
play, in playing, in games which are imperceptibly disciplined
p through
and exalted.
t
he
g
r
e a t e s t
e
i
n
c
l
i n a t i o n ,
d
Since he was unable to take children from as early an age as he would have
iliked, when the play instinct was still naturally present, he compromised by
n
working wit h adolescents and tried t o re-open for them the door t o the
tenchanted garden. Again, it was Suzanne Bing to whom he handed the key.
o
During
the Vieux Colombier's stay in New York, from 1917 to 1919, she
'had taught at The Children's School which embraced the latest educational
gtheories to do with freedom of choice and creative expression for children of
primary-school
age. There she used, in particular, games based on animal
r
mimicry
and
later
took the same classes in the Vieux Colombier School
u
without making any adjustment for the greater age of the pupils. Today
n
u
n
e
l
o
there are any number of books on the use of dramatic games in the classroom
and elsewhere, right up to their political and therapeutic use in the work of
Augusto Boat. I n the .face of such sophistication, any listing here of the
actual exercises used by Bing would seem simplistic. The important thing to
note is that Copeau sought to gain nothing from play a priori except those
things which belong to it naturally.
We observe the children at play. They teach us Learn everything from
•children. Impose nothing on them. Take nothing away from them. Help
them in their development without their being aware of it. All this is
difficult , to describe because it is s t ill in a state of experimentation,
nothing dogmatic. Inspired f rom lif e and human contact. Fu l l o f
promise. Labour of patience already begun. Aim for making the actor
• n o t only themedium, but the.soutce of all dramatic inspiration.
38
He said that in 1917. Throughout the•period of the Vieux Colombier School
and of the Copiaus, he created a culture where imaginative play informed the
work and did, as he had promised, lead to 'small-scale productions for which
people are left entirely to their own devices, as creators and workers'.
39 As much as he believed in laisser jouer, however, he could not bring
himself to let it happen without absenting himself altogether. Bing could do
it for him, but in the end he let her go too. I n 1929. she, and the Copiaus,
were indeed left to their own, separate, devices. Copeau took his ball and
stayed at home. He had always maintained that his work was provisional
and preParatory: prophetic, one might say, rather than messianic. I t may be
that the future came too close, or that he had a temperamental preference for
disillusion and preferred to leave it to others to claim the domain which he
had helped to discover.
Of his actors, Charles Dullin and Louis Jouvet went on to become the
most influential French directors of the inter-war years. Of his pupils, Jean
Daste carried the banner of decentralisation in his work as director of the
Comedie de St Etienne, whilst Michel Saint-Denis continued the pedagogy,
founding the London Theatre Studio and The Old Vic School, the National
Theatre School of Canada and the Draina Division of the Juillard School,
New York. Following another star, Etienne Decroux became the father of
modern corporeal mime. Copeau's real legacy, however, has been to put the
playfulness back into plays and the quest for sincerity back into playing
them. This quest has been disseminated latterly throughout the world via
countless of his and Suzanne Ding's drama exercises and their derivatives..
Notes •
.
1 1922; translated in
•• J-ohn
Paul, London: Rourledge, p. 145.
C Rudlin
o p e aand
u Norman
,
P
T
e
x
t
s
r
n
o o
T
h
e a
m
t
r
e
'
1
9
C (
9
0
)
o
,
Jacques cop eau 7 7
76 J ohn Rudlin
2 Fr om an address to the Washington Square Players, New York, 20 Apr il 1917,•
Rudlin and Paul, op. cit., p. 253.
3 Vanity Pair, Apr il 1917, p. 49.
4 M i chel Saint-Denis (1982) Training for the Theatre, N ew Yor k; Theatre Ar ts,
London: Heinemann, p. 31.
5 Lee Strasberg (1965) Strasberg at the Actors Studio, ed. Robert H. Hethmon, New
York: Vi ki ng Press (quoted i n T. Cole and H .K. Chinoy (eds) (1970) Actors on
Acting, New York; Crown, p. 624.
6 From &flexions d'un comic/len rut le Paradoxe de Diderot, Pion, 1929, translated in
Rudlin and Paul, op. cit., pp. 72- 3.
7 Fr om IrEcole du Vieux Colombier', unpublished notebook, translated in Rucilin
and Paul, op. ci t.,p. 21.
8 From an unpublished notebook TEcole du Vieux Colombier No. 2' , 1915- 20,
translated i n R udl i n and Paul, op. c i t., p. 28. ' A n Attem pt at Dramatic
Renovation i s the correct English translation of Copeau's 1913 manifesto for Le
Vieux Colombier, E s s a i de Renovation Dramatique',
9 I n 1922- 3 the number went up to twelve, then shrank again to nine in 1923- 4.
10 From: l' Ecole du Vieux Colombia' , i n the Vieux Colombier programme for La
Latandiera, January 1924, translated in Rudlin and Paul, op. cit., pp. 46- 7.
11 W al do F r ank ( 1925) t o p e a u Begi ns Agai n' , Theatre A m Magazine, I X
(September), pp. 585- 90.
12 From an open letter to the Swiss press, M ay 1928, translated i n R udl i n and
Paul, op. cit., pp. 168- 70.
13 Copeau (1931) Souvenirs the Vieux Colombier, Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris,
p. 106.
14 These notes are taken from Le Journal de Bord des Coplaus (1974), Paris: Gontard,
pp. 45- 6.
15 Letter to the Swiss press, op. cit.
16 Translated fr om the manuscript i n the Fonds C op= o f the Bibliotheque de
l'Arsenal, Paris, in Rudlin and Paul, op. cit., pp. 172- 6.
17 3 0 November 1928.
18 Copeau, quoted i n ' Copeau l'Eveilleur', ed. Pavis and Thomasseau ( 1995)
Bufironeries 34: 15- 16, no source given.
19 From Copeau's first plan for the Vieux Colombier School, 1916.
20 U ndated notes i n Copeau's Journal, translated i n R udl i n and Paul, op. ci t.,
p, 67,
21 Jean Dorcy, later to found the Danse et Culture School, whose pupils included
Marcel Marceau, was an actor i n his m id- Senties, attached to another division
of the Vieux Colombier School.
22 Barbara Anne Kusler (1974) 'Jacques Copeau's Theatre School, 1920- 1929,
Doctoral thesis, University of Wisconsin, p. 133.
23 Li vr e de bord, quoted K i n k ; op. cit., p. 144.
24 Jacques Lecoq (1997) Le Corps Poltique, Paris: Actes Sud, p. 82.
25 Lucienne Lavelle, of the Opera Ballet Company, was first i n her class i n 1923.
She danced such roles as Coppelia, the cat in Sleeping Beauty. In Paris and on tour
she was especially cited for her technique in Romeo and Juliet. She later taught at
the Paris Opera.
26 T hi s weekly class lasted from November 1921 to June 1922.
27 F or this section I am indebted to Barbara AnneKusler, op. cit., pp. 132- 3. She
in tur n relies on the class notes taken by Bing and Marie-Helene Copeau, which
are not available to me at the time of writing.
28 Notes sur l e Métier d'tirs Corn/lien, notes taken from the diary and writings o f
Jacques Copeau by Marie-Helene Daste (Paris: M ichel Br ient, 1955, p. 47) ,
translated i n John Rudlin (1986)Jacques Copeau, Cambridge, p. 46.
29 Thi s study of 'isolations' was } t er greatly to be developed by Copeau's pupil,
Etienne Decroux.
30 R udl i n, op. cit.
31 Jean Dasto, from an article for the programme of the Gabler' de la Maison de la
Culture de Grenoble, 3 November 1945, translated R udl i n and Paul, op. ci t.,
p. 230.
32 T he Trench word used was 'cloausser
1 single equivalent in English and the usually adopted translation of 'shoeing the
conjures
, mmask'
e a to
n imy
n mind
g
t
o up images of horse hooves and farriers.
33 A confl ation o f notes by Jean Dorcy and Jan Doat, as suggested by Sears
p Eldredge
u
t ( 1975) 'Masks;
o
Tnhei r U se and Effectiveness i n Ac tor Tr ai ni ng
a
s34 Jean
h Durcy
o (1975)
e
The
, Mime, trans. Speller and Marceau, London: W hi te Lion,
Pro h
T pp
i
s
35 Précis from Jan Doat (1944) L'Exprestion Carporelle du Corn/lien, Paris; Bordas,
h .
a
s
8pp. 53- 5. o
n36 W
_ al do F r ank ( 1925) ' Copeau Begi ns Agai n' , Theatre Ar ts Magazine, I X
(September), pp. 585- 90. •
9
37 Letter
from Marie-Helene Daste to Barbara Anne Kusler, December 1973.
g om Copeau's notes for hi s thi r d lecture ( given i n French) at T he Li ttl e
38 Fr
iTheatre, New York, tEc ol e du Vieux Colombier', 19 March 1917, translated in
rRudlin and Paul, op. cit., p. 12.
39 See note 10.
o
ar
Bi blni ogr aphy
Boigal,
s Clement 0.9601Jacques Cepease, Paris: l'Arche.
Daisy,
1 Marcel (1954) Jaques Capeatt owl'Absolu dans l'Art, Paris; Le Cercle du Livre.
Frank,
, . Waldo (1918) The Ar t of the Vieux Colombier, Paris, New York: Editions de l a
N U ; reprinted in his Salvos, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924. •
D
Kurtz, Maurice (1950)Jacques Copeati, Biographic dun Theatre, Paris: Nagel.
o
Lerminier,
Georges(1953) Jacques Copeau, le Reformatetir, Paris: PLR
c t Leopold (1933)Jacques Copeau, Louvain—Paris: Rex.
Levaux,
o r N or m an H . ( 1979) Bibliographic Jacques Capeati, Societe des Belles Lertres,
Paul,
aUniversite
l
de Beaune
Pavis,
t Patr ice and Thomasseau, Jean-Marie (eds) ( 1995) ' Copeau
hBuffoneries 34: 15-16,
Rudlin,
John (1986)Jaeques Copeau, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
e
s
Anthologies,
Catalogues
i
s
Jacques
Copeau et le Vieux Colombier (1963) Catalogue for exhibition at Bibliotheque
, Nationale.
U S., Copeau, l a n d Chancerel, L. (1974) Le Journal de bard des Coplaus, Gontard,
Bing,
nDenis (cd.), Paris.
Cabanis,
A. (ed.) (1976) Registres M ol i er e, Paris; Gallimard.
i
Daste,
Marie-Helene and Maistre
v
. eSAppels,
a i n Paris:
t - D Gallimard.
eni s ,
— u (1979)
Reginstresn ILLeLes Registret du Vieux Colambier I, Paris: Gallimard.
S
z
a
r
rv.
(—s e(198,9
d Registrar
s
) Les Registres du Vieux Colombier II, America, Paris: Gallimar&
( i
1
9
7
9
) t
Ry
e
g
i
s
t o r
o
Lf
M
i
78 John Ruellin
-
(1993) Registres V Les Registres du Vieux Colomhier III, 1919- 1924, Paris: Gallimard.
Rudlin, John and Paul, Norman H.. (eds and trans.) (1990)Jacques Copeau, Texts on
Theatre, London and New York: Roudedge. •
4 M i c h a e l Chekhov on the
technique of acting
'Was Don Quixote true to life?'
Franc Chamberlain
Th e context
As an outstanding actor and author of one of the best actor training manuals
ever published in the European•tradition,
one
in t w e n t i e t h
1 Mofi the
c hkey
a figures
e l
himself
was
celebrated
by some of the major directors of the century,
iC h eonstage
k h o v
Stanislavsky,
Valchtangov,
c(including
en
t
u
r
y
t
h
e
a
t
r
e
.
1 8 9 1 - 1 9 5 5 Reinhardt, and Meyerhold: whilst his
practical
H
i advice
s
)
icontinues tos inspire actors through his writings and through
schools in Russia, Lithuania, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain
a b i l i t y
and the USA.
t
o
, The nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov, Michael Chekhov was
t
r
a
n
s
f
o
r
only seven years old when Nernirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavslcy formed
m
the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) in 1898, including his uncle's play The
Seagull in their fi rst season. I n a diary entry writ t en in the same year,
Vsevolod Meyerhold recorded a conversation between some of the MA T
actors and Antdil Chelchov. Bemused to hear of plans to introduce country, • s ide noises offstage in The Seagull in order to make the environment more
v 'realistic', the playwright laughed, asserting that the theatre was art and that
the additions were superfluous? Stanislavsky's approach, at this time, was to
attempt to create as detailed an imitation of life onstage as possible.
By contrast, Meyerhold, inspired by the symbolist plays and theories of
Maeterlinck and Bryusov, was interested in the idea of a stylised theatre.
which emphasised 'atmosphere' o r ' mood' ov er naturalistic det ail.
Atmosphere, for Meyerhold, was generated by the actors and, despite his
reservations regarding Stanislavsky's concern f or naturalistic production
values, he felt that the MAT actors had managed to evoke the appropriate
mood of The Seagull. The importance of the actor as a creative artist was
picked up by Bryusov, who argued that it was the theatre's task to assist the
actor in manifesting this creativity in a way that would be understood by
the audience. Work ing wi t h these symbolist influences f or a decade,
Meyerhold attempted several productions of Maeterlinck, searching for a
technique
construct
an 'external depiction of an inner experience',
s.
,
w h i c
h
w o
u l d
u
Peter Brook 1 7 5
9 P e t e r Brook
Transparency and the invisible
network
Lorna Marshall and David Williams
Our primary concern in this chapter is t o outline the evolution of Peter
Brook's ideas on the preparation of actors. Our particular focus is the development of two interrelated qualities that are prerequisites for performers in
his own company: a state of openness and immediacy he calls 'transparency';
and a state o f connectedness and responsiveness he calls 't he invisible
network'. As we shall see, both of these qualities are conceived and explored
on internal and external levels. Indeed, like self and other, actor and character, performers and audience, f or Brook inner Movement and external
action must always be in a dynamic relationship of exchange.
Context
Peter Brook's extraordinarily productive career as a director spans the halfcentury since the end of the Second World War, and includes over seventy
theatre and opera productions and a dozen films. I t will be useful in this
context to divide his extensive body of work into three periods, despite the
fact that such historiographic 1
tions.
dis memberings '
w The
i first
l phase
l (1945-63) covers the years of Brack's professional apprenticeship
contexts, forms and styles. At the
i n e in va _wide
i t range
a bof performance
l
age
of
twenty-two,
he
was
already
a
director
at the Royal Opera House,
y
Covent Garden; and by 1963, when Brook was thirty-eight, he had-directed
b
e
over forty productions, including nine Shakespeare plays and seven major
soperas.
i Landmark
m p productions
l
i
f included a luminous Love's Labour's Lost-for
ithe Royal
c
aShakespeare
Company (1946), an explosive reworking of Strauss's
Salome' (1949) designed by Salvador Dali, a startling Titus Andronicus (1955)
with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, and an elemental, absurdist King
Lear (1962) with Paul Scofield.
Although he was known primarily as a director of classical theatre, Brook
also juggled productions of major twentieth-century European playwrights
(Cocteau, Sartre, Anouilh, Genet, Diirenmat t ) and works b y seminal
modernists (including Eliot and Miller), plus overtly commercial projects —
boulevard comedies, musicals and television drama. Brook's trajectory
reflects his deliberate immersion in a contradictory array of experiences,
seeking t o fi nd a complex, composite reality through the exploration of
opposites. I n retrospect, he has referred t o this period as ' a theatre of
images', informed by an escapist aesthetic of illusionist decoration and artifice — a theatre in which the world of the stage was wholly separated from
that of spectators, and where the director's 'vision' was omnipotent.
The second phase (1964-70) constituted a period of reappraisal, maturation
and proactive research. Brook was becoming increasingly disaffected wit h
the existing processes and forms of much contemporary theatre — a shortsighted, convention-bound theatre he stigmatised as 'deadly' (Brook 1968:
11-46). In his search for theatre languages that could more accurately reflect
contemporary reality, he questioned the theatrical status quo at every level,
Rejecting ossified ('deadly') processes, he returned to core constitutive ques—
tions:
Theatres, actors, critics and public are interlocked in a machine that
creaks but never stops. There is always a new season in hand and we are
too busy to ask the only vital question which measures the whole structure. • Why theatre a t all? Wh a t for? I s i t a n anachronism, a
superannuated oddity, surviving lik e an old monument or a quaint
custom? Why do we applaud, and what? Has the stage a real place in
our lives? What function can it have? What could it serve? What could
it explore? What are its special qualities?
(Brook 1968: 44)
This period of work reached fruition in a remarkable series of productions
Brook has characterised as a 'theatre of disturbance' (see, for example, Trewin
1971: 199). An explicit shift in his concerns and processes became evident
in a n experimental project conducted under t he aegis o f the Roy al
Shakespeare Company, wit h a group co-directed wit h Charles Marowitz.
Public 'work-in-progress' showings of this early, tentative research in 1964
were entitled the 'Theatre of Cruelty' in homage to Antonin Artaud. The
culmination of this research occurred wit h the celebrated production of
Peter Weiss's Marat/Sade (1964), a collectively devised response t o the
Vietnam War ambiguously entitled US (1966), and a choral, ritualised
Oedipus (1968) in an abrasive new version by the poet Ted Hughes.
This transitional phase was also characterised by a growing awareness of
the importance of the actor wit hin an ensemble. The creativity of actors
would be instrumental in challenging the complacency of prevalent practices and creative hierarchies, as we l l as fi nding theatrical forms as
multifaceted as Shakespeare's: Brook t ook Elizabethan dramaturgy as his
model; he particularly admired its shifts of gear in the mix of comedy and
tragedy, its vivid language, and the directness of its forms. Shakespeare was
his prototype for a conflation of the 'rough' and the 'holy' into a textured
totality he called the 'immediate'.I This area of Brook's research reached its
176 Lorna Marshall and David Williams
apogee with his swansong with the RSC, a joyously airborne production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1970), which radically dismantled received
ideas of the play. In this work, Brook and his group of actor-acrobats created
a counter-image to the harrowing, confrontational tenor of the earlier work
of this period with a bright circus-inflected celebration reuniting stage and
auditorium.
•
In retrospect, the 1960s marked a period of significant development for
Brook in terms of his conception of the training of actors. He used detailed
exploration of improvisatory techniques to dislodge actors from reductive
psychological behaviourism, and, as they began to tap other energies, Brook
was able to recognise their creative primacy ' I t takes a long while for a
director t o cease t hink ing in terms of the result he desires and instead
concentrate on discovering the source of energy in the actor from which true
impulses can arise' (Brook 1998: 83).
Brook's goal, to amplify actors' capacities as instruments responsive to all
the sources of the creative process, has been pursued and refined by him to
he present day. Eventually, it took him from the restrictive working conditions i n commercial •theatre in England, and led him t o a new base in
France.
The third phase comprises Brook's work since 1970 with his international
group in Paris, the International Centre for Theatre Research ( c a t . Its
focus has ranged from private research behind closed doors, to explorations
of theatrical communication in the field (on journeys to Iran, Africa and the
USA), to recent forays. into the fantastic inner landscapes of neurological
disorders for the production of The Man Who (1993). Core projects have
included Orthast (1971) in the tombs of Persepolis, Iran; Timon of Athens
(1974); adaptations of Colin Tumbull's anthropological study of the demise
of a Ugandan tribe The lk (1975-6); a presentation of a twelfth-century Sufi
poem Conference of the Birds (1979); La Tragidie de Carmen„(1981), a nine-hour
version of the Hindu epic The Mahabharata (1985-8); and a spartan staging
of Shakespeare's The Tempest (1990) with the African actor Sotigui Kouyate
as Prospero?
So, after almost three decades with his own company, what are the qualities Brook most admires and requires in his actor-collaborators? And what
are the recurrent impulses and characteristics of the performances they have
made together?
Briefly, all of Brook's work wit h the CIRT has been marked by continuing attention to the following ideals:
1 T h e development of actors wit h a capacity to articulate the trajectories
of inner, impulses, conveying these impulses i n external forms wit h
clarity and immediacy — 'transparency' (Brook 1998:- 224) — and the
search for a charged simplicity and economy in those forms, a 'distillation' (ibid.).
Peter Brook 1 7 7
2 T h e actor as a primary creative source in an ensemble conceived as a
'storyteller with many heads' (ibid.: 197) — a team of players. Therefore
actors need to be open, complicitous and responsive to the requirements
of an embodied transform-ability Brook has called lightness'.
3 T3
h e extreme pragmatism of improvisation as the key to the preparation
of performers. Related to this, the importance of direct experiences of
differing performance conditions and audiences. Work-in-progress is
often presented in unconventional spaces t o unfamiliar audiences (in
schools, hospitals, prisons etc.). Such experiences aim to unsettle actors'
habitual responses and open them up to different energies and qualities
of exchange.
4 T h e absolute necessity for structure, and the conviction that forms can
engender freedom for actors. Structure and play are seen as counterbalancing elements, interwoven supports for each other.•
5 Res earc h as 'self-research'; a process of evolution and individual development in which theatre serves as potent site and means, but rarely as the
exclusive end. In other words, theatre as a means to go beyond theatre —
theatre-making as the site f or what James Hillman has Called 'soulmaking'.
6 T h e act of theatre as affirmative 're-membering' (Brook 1998: 225), in
which a mythical narrative o r fable is actualised here and now:
'reuniting the community, in all its diversity, wit hin the same shared
experience' (Brook 1978: 7).
Ultimately, all of Brook's work with the Centre at its base at the Bouffes du
Nord theatre in Paris has been driven by the desire to discover what makes
theatre 'immediate' (or 'um-deadly'). Hi s diverse training exercises and
rehearsal methods have been developed and endlessly reinvented to support
and realise this desire. When examining Brook's work, i t is essential t o
understand its open-endedness; he has no single form or style in mind, no
pre-conceived vision of a desirable end product. Moreover, he has often reiterated the instability of the relationship between surface forms and the
underlying processes and impulses that 'in-form t hem: i n other words,
between 'means' and 'meanings'.
He suggests that all of his theatre productions possess two distinct, i f
closely interrelated, aspects. First, the external mise-en-scone is comprised of
contextually determined forms emerging from the performance's physical
conditions. Second, beneath these specific patterns of images, no more than
tips of invisible icebergs, lies what he terms 'the hidden production': 'an
invisible network of relationships' t hat can give rise t o other forms and
patterns wit hout forfeiting a work's 'essential meaning' (Brook 1998:
151-2). I n this context, it may be fruitful to view Brook's preparation of
actors through the lens of this metaphor —as a collaborative 'weaving' of an
'invisible network' that feeds, generates and energises all aspects of theatrical
communication.
178 Lorna Marshall and David Williams
Exercises
Preparation
Given the importance o f actors' processes i n Brook's work, appropriate
training is evidently essential. However, 'preparation' is a more useful term
than 't raining' when considering t he Centre's approach. Brook is not
engaged i n developing t he skills o f the actor f rom the ground up, o f
'forming' actors for his own particular style of work. I n general, Brook's
actors come to the company wit h a distinguished track record. Most have
had years of training within a particular theatre culture — in Japanese Noh,
Balinese Topeng, African storytelling and dance, English or Polish classical
theatre, and so on; and all have performed extensively i n a variety o f
contexts. By most standards, they are already 'fully trained'. Their bodies,
emotions and voices have already learned how to respond to the demands of
different kinds of theatre-making.
At the same time, all of the CIRT's projects include an element of physical and vocal work geared towards further extending the actors' technical
skills. Sometimes this takes the form of training in particular styles of physical or vocal work (for example, Tai Chi). At other times the approach is less
familiar. During the Centre's early research, Brook often arranged contact
wit h groups wit h particular perceptual abilities — for example, deaf practitioners (such as the American Theatre of the Deaf) and deaf audiences, who
were usually children. Interaction wit h their amplified tactile and visual
sensibilities was perceived to be as informative as any other more conventional 'specialist' training — perhaps even more so. In addition, performers in
particular projects are exposed t o appropriate training regimes under the
direction of specialists wit hin the group. For example, the CIRT performer
Alain Maratrat passed on his extensive knowledge o f south-east Asian
martial arts t o the Mahabbarata company, as did practitioners of certain
South Indian forms (such as Kathalcali and Kalarippayattu).
However, the main thrust of Brook's 'training' lies in another direction.
Through the preparatory work, the actors encounter the absolute imperative
for responsiveness, openness, and the abilit y t o operate as team-players
within the group. Their earlier training is useful in terms of the depth of
theatrical experience it can afford, and of the self-discipline required for a
profession that is an ongoing process of learning to learn. But wit h Brook
they are invited to work beyond or beneath enculturated theatrical conventions, whether it be the 'psychological truths' of Western naturalism or the
codified gestures of Asian forms. Brook's processes resemble the via negativa
of Grotowski; they necessitate an un-learning, a peeling away of habit and
the known in favour of the potential and the 'essential'.
Brook's ideal actor has moved beyond ego-driven virmoSity to a kind of
psycho-somatic integration that he calls 'transparency'. Alive and present in
every molecule of their being, they have 'the capacity to listen through the
Peter Brook 1 7 9
body t o codes and impulses that are hidden all the t ime at the root of
cultural forms' (1998: 167). At the moment of transparency, as in certain
kinds of possession in which consciousness does not disappear, actors become
a site or conduit for the manifestation of the 'spirit' or 'life' of words, song,
dance — a 'life' that Brook believes exists beneath theatrical forms. At the
point Of transparency, it speaks/sings/dances them Thus , actors need t o
become
instruments that transmit truths which otherwise would remain out of
sight. These truths can appear from sources deep within ourselves or far
outside ourselves. Any preparation we do is only part of the complete
preparation. The body must be ready and sensitive, but that isn't all.
The voice has to be open and free. The emotions have to be open and
free. The intelligence has to be quick. All of these have to be prepared.
There are crude vibrations that can come through very easily and fine
ones that come through only with difficulty. In each case the life we are
looking for means breaking open a series of habits. A habit of speaking;
maybe a habit made by an entire language.
(Brook 1987: 107)
It is with such a goal in mind that, for example, Brook invited the internationally renowned Felderdcrais teacher Monika Pagneux t o prepare t he
young cast of his Don Giovanni in Aix-en-Provence (1998) — to unsettle
received lid canto habits, to stimulate individual and collective dexterity and
economy and to encourage a fluid openness and integration..
The starting point for Brook's training is responsiveness: the ability to
sense and play with, and off, material in a simple, direct way. This 'material'
can be impulses arising within the actor or suggested externally, in the relationship wit h another performer or performers, or in elements of the text
itself. Performers are encouraged to develop and exercise a tripartite attentiveness: to inner impulses, to fellow performers and to the space. For Brook,
initially such 'respons-ability' is developed physically through the body and
its intuitive intelligence, rather than intellectually through analysis or
discussion. His preparation of actors realigns the assumed relationship of
mind and body in Western cultures, reversing the conventional Cartesian
hierarchy and traditional point of access to 'meaning':
It is always a mistake for actors to begin their work wit h intellectual
discussion, as the rational mind is not nearly as potent an instrument of
discovery as the more secret faculties of intuition. The possibility of
intuitive understanding through the body is stimulated and developed
in many different ways. If this happens, within the same day there can be
moments of repose when the mind can peacefully play its true role. Only
then will analysis and discussion of the text find their natural place.
(Brook 1993: 108)
Peter Brook 1 8 1
180 Lorna Marshall and David Williams
Although t he body is init ially privileged as mediator of experience and
storehouse of knowledges, the ultimate ideal is an actor who has developed
to the point where all available channels — those of the body, the intellect,
and the emotional faculties — are open, interconnected and active (Brook
1987: 232). Research and training thus constitute a 'clearing o f Paths'
(Brook 1973). As in Gurdjieff's system of 'harmonious development', to
which Brook's work is indebted, personal evolution stems from simultaneous
work on the three core centres of body, thought and feelings. Once this
internal network of relationships is active, it permits openings and connections t o others, the wider 'network of relationships' that Brook refers t o
above.
In There Are No Secrets, Brook describes the preparatory process for The
Tempest. The group began by withdrawing from its familiar base in Paris,
and mov ing t o a secluded rehearsal space i n the cloisters o f a former
monastery in Avignon. Scripts of the play were ignored completely for the
first ten days, as the actors prepared their bodies and.voices through group
games and improvisations whose sole purpose was t o develop quick responsiveness, a hand, ear and eye contact, a shared awareness that is easily lost
and has to be constantly renewed, to bring together the separate individuals
into a sensitive, vibrant team' (Brook 1993: 107).
Such activities are not warm-ups before performers turn to the 'real' task
of acting, as is often the case in contemporary theatre. Instead, they are
oriented towards amplifying spontaneity, responsiveness and complicity,
whilst exercising the 'muscles' of intuition and the imagination.
In practice, these activities take many different forms: leader/led 'conversations' between actors involving physical and/or vocal exchange; collective
exercises i n rhythm, polyrhythm and counterpoint, of both auditory and
spatial lcinds; choral work in which individual actions feed and sustain
collective images; and improvisatory play focused around simple objects —
balls, cloths, doors, boxes, sticks. Brook compares this kind of preparatory
work to the training of a sports ream: 'only an acting team must go farther;
not only the bodies, but the thoughts and feelings must all come into play
and stay in tune (ibid.).
•
'Tuning' here is a musical or orchestral metaphor. I t represents a quality
of listening and interaction in which the personal (individual instruments)
needs t o serve the supra-personal. (the orchestral collective). Paradoxically
the recognition of the primacy of the whole over. its individual parts —.the
team over the player —can enable a deeper 'individuality' and sense of self to
flourish in 'the projection of a collective imagination fax richer than our
own (Brook 1998: 183).
•
•
In The Invisible Actor, Yoshi Oida describes one of the many exercises that
invite heightened attention to the circulation of energies underpinning the
'invisible networks of relationships'. Two people exchange a conversation
using only the actions of one hand. Each person 'listens' to physical impulses
offered by the other, and responds to them, in a direct and immediate way
using their own hand. Oida is at pains to point out that these puppeted
hand languages should not be referential, like a code to he deciphered 'like
sign language or a game of charades':
Instead, you try to concentrate your whole existence into that one hand.
It is a k ind o f strange animal, communicating t o another equally
strange animal. When you find the genuine life of this creature, and it is
able to develop a real and varied relationship with the other animal, it is
fascinating to watch.
(Okla 1997: 75-6)
Figure 9,1 St ic k exercise with the American Theater of the Deaf, Paris, 1971
Source: Photo, CICT
•
Note: The sticks externalise and amplify personal impulses whi c h harmonisS as a collective
impulse when individuals 'listen' to the group. A t such moments, transparency and connection intersect.
The aim is to condense the full sensitivity and expressivity of the body into
one isolated part. Oida suggests that the quality of deep attention brought
to bear in such seemingly banal interactions is crucial. When a connection is
established, the space between the two hands is animated in a kind of small,
182 L o r n a Marshall and David Williams
energised dance of relatedness. Here 'drama' is generated via the combustion
of contact between t wo 'life forms', t heir particular qualities amplifi ed
because they are reduced and distilled:
What is interesting is the exchange. The 'acting' doesn't reside in the
hand of each actor; it exists in the air between the two hands. This kind
of acting is not narrative, not psychology, not emotion, but something
else, something more basic. I t is very difficult to describe exactly what
it is.
(Oida 1997: 76)
On a micro level, therefore, this exercise represents a provocation to concentration (inward towards one's own hand) and openness (outward towards the
other's hand). At the same time, it reflects the quality of exchange desired
on a macro level within the company as a whole, and ultimately with those
present as spectators. The network links the actor to self, t o partner, t o
ensemble, to audience.
It is important to note that all such exercises can, and should, be re-made
for particular contexts. The exchange could be exclusively vocal, such as
improvised responses to the sounds of an existing text; or it could involve
any pans of the body, with or without voice. There is no stable vocabulary of
exercises, no immutable 'box of tricks'. What is central here is the exchange
and its subtle repercussions — the pleasure of the changes it instigates:
You have to work at a level deeper than that of the intellect. As a result,
each time you 'exchange', something inside you changes in reaction.
From moment to moment you alter and respond. I n this way, as the
sounds and movements are exchanged, your inner being constantly
shifts.
(Oida 1997: 78-9)
Responding to text
Once the sense of an ensemble has begun to be established, and individual
'instruments' are 'tuned' and able to Play' in relation to each other, then the
group turns to language. Often tied to habitual responses, words can enforce
the 'deadly' and impede an immediacy of communication. Brook's preparation o f actors includes a re-examination of all aspects o f their use o f
language.
Like other external stimuli employed to provoke internal responses, texts
are initially treated as materials to be explored and 'understood' physically
and emotionally, rather than intellectually in terms of their surface content
and meaning. In this context, the kind of responsiveness Brook seeks in his
actors has little to do with intellectual understanding per se, or even with the
ability to establish personal emotional identification with the words in ques-
Peter Brook 1 8 3
don. I t is something more fundamental, lik e glimpsing t he particular
topography of a world or landscape. Brook's discourse in this context often
describes patient and sensitive physiological discovery. He has talked, for
example, of the voice as a mountain with many caves that the actor needs to
explore, or of the imperative to treat a new word like a blind man finding a
butterfly (Smith 1972: 76,130).
As wit h any existing cultural formation or expression, Brook wants his
actors to disinter elements underlying language through a sensitisation to its
deeper resonances. The actors are invited to taste the textures and qualities
of energy — the 'music' — underpinning its particular forms and to listen to
the ways in which this 'music' impacts on their inner landscapes. To return
to Brook's description of preparation for The Tempest:
After a few days our study included words, single words, then clusters of
words and then eventually isolated phrases in English and French to try
and make real for everyone, including the translator, the special nature
of Shakespearean writing.
(Brook 1993: 108)
Indeed Brook believes that it is possible to respond with integrity to a given
text even when the actor cannot understand the referential meanings of the
words. I n the early 1970s, this belief was the axis of the language work
which culminated i n t he performance o f Orghast at Persepolis. Brook
describes his multicultural group's imperative t o side-step the assumed
consensus of an existing shared language:
The theme of the first year's work of the International Centre of Theatre
Research was to be a study of the structures of sounds. Our aim was to
discover more fully what constitutes living expression. To do this, we
needed to work outside the basic system of communication of theatres,
we had t o lay aside the principle of communication through shared
words, shared signs, shared references, shared languages, shared slang,
shared cultural or subcultural imagery.
(Brook 1987: 108)
In preparation for Orghart, the actors initially experimented wit h the sound
qualities of swear words, but soon moved on to the creation of their own
language constructed from an accumulation of simple sounds. Oida explains:
We took words from various languages and jumbled them up together
to create interesting sounds, e.g. 'Bashta bond° stoflock madai zutto'.
We had to create a meaning for this phrase according to the situation
that was being improvised. Work ing wit h a partner (who obviously
didn't know the literal sense of your words), you had to communicate
184 Lorna Marshall and David Williams
what you wanted to say through your uses of intonations and clarity of
intention. We worked a great deal in this created language...
(Oida 1992t 47)
Subsequently, they experimented wi t h 'dead' languages t hat had once
communicated specific meanings throngh words and grammar, but that
were unknown t o all of the actors in the group: One exercise involved
Ancient Greek, a language in which the meanings of words are known to
scholars, whilst their precise articulation in speech still remains the subject
of conjecture. Brook describes how a passage of Ancient Greek was given to
the actors as a single unbroken unit, without any of its usual verbal or
compositional divisions. Like any newly encountered word, this 'nugget of
"ualmowingness
potential:
' I t was not divided into verses, nor even into separate words; it
—
was
just
a
( B r o olong
k series of letters, as in the earliest manuscripts. The actor was
confronted
with
1 9 9 8 a fragment: ELELEUELELELTUPOMAUSFAKELOSKAIFREENOPLEGEIS
;
1 The actors were invited to approach this fragment 'like an archaeologist,
1
6
8
stumbling
an unknown object in the sand' (Brook 1987; 108), deci( B r o o over
k
)phering its. deeper layers by means of their own intuitive sensitivities and
1 9 8
h
a
7'knowledges':
:
d
1 0
t The actor's truly scientific tool is an inordinately developed emotional
8 faculty
) . wit h which he learns to apprehend certain truths, to discrimio
b nate between real and false. I t was this capacity that the actor brought
e into play, tasting the Greek letters on the tongue, scanning them wit h
Gradually the rhythms hidden in the fl ow of letters
e hisx sensibility.
p
began to reveal themselves, gradually the latent tides of emotion swelled
l
o
r
up and shaped the phrases until the actor found himself speaking them
e with
d increasing force and conviction. Eventually every actor found it
f possible to play the words wit h a deeper and richer sense of meaning
o than if he had known what they were meant to say.
r
(1987: 108)
i
Once
again, Brook's linguistic model is musical: a communicative medium
t
of
the
senses in which means and meaning are indissolubly interwoven. For
s
Brook,
such
m
u music represents an untranslatable language sufficient unto
itself: pm-intellectual, emotional, physically rooted, and potentially transscultural. i
c
a
l
Inside/outside •
Brook has endeavoured t o illustrate key elements of his,perspectives on
acting processes •with- reference to a familiar shorthand: acting as from the
'inside-out', and from the 'outside-in'. Although these two terms are often
Peter Brook 1 8 5
used to describe two mutually exclusive approaches to creativity in acting,
for Brook they are complementary and inseparable.
In the early 1990s, during a public forum on the Centre's work, he
invited those present t o enact and experience these different, but interrelated, approaches in a simple and direct manner. First of all, they were
as k ed
t o Make a movement with your right arm, allow it to go anywhere, really
without thinking. When I give the signal, let it go, then stop
r e•anywhere,
s
the movement. Go! Now hold the gesture just where it is, don't change
p o
or improve it , only t ry t o feel what i t is that you are expressing.
n d
Recognise that some sort of impression cannot fail to emanate from the
t attitude of your body. I look at all of you, and 'although you did not
o attempt to 'tell' anything; to try to 'say' anything, you just let your arm
t go where it wished, yct each of you is expressing something.
• • (Brook -1993: 68)
h
e
A
is triggered without conscious intellectual volition or composii movement
r
tional
shaping;
although i t is o f course i n some sense 'chosen' by the
o
individual
participants,
for they are its origin and site. Once this movement
w
has been arrested at an externally determined point, participants are encourn
aged t o explore this attitude; they are invited t o 'taste' it s expressive
iparticularity and informational resonances and associations, as i f it were a
n
fi lm still they temporarily inhabit. No gesture will be neutral or void, Brook
tsuggests, for each one represents an 'attitude' in both senses- of the word a
e'dis-position' Each can be read in many different ways from both the inside
and
externally,
r
n Brook then proposes something slightly different using exactly the same
astarting point, an unpremeditated arm movement stopped at a particular
•moment:
l
i
Now hold the attitude just where i t happens t o be and try, without
m modifying your position, to feel a relationship between the hand, the
p arm, the shoulder, up t o the muscles of the eye. Feel that it all has a
u meaning. Now allow the gesture to develop, to become more complete
l
through a minimal movement, just a small adjustment. Feel in this
s minute change, something transformed itself in the totality of your
e body, and the complete attitude becomes more unified and expressive.
(Brook 1993: 68)
s
i
Here t he emphasis is o n sensing relations between t he parts and a
n
whole, physically and then cognitively. The endeavour t o transform an
aaccidental attitude int o a f orm t hat has 'meaning', t hrough minimal•
nadjustment, engages the wi l l and imagination. The perspective used in
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
Peter Brook 1 8 7
186 Lorna Marshall and David Williams
this compositional refi ning i s sensory and internal; a t t he moment
'meaning' comes into being, 'inside' modifies 'outside'.
At this point, Brook returns to the beginning of the exercise, once again
shifting its parameters:
Instead of making a movement that is your own, take a movement that
I give you; place your hand, open, in front of you, the palm facing the
outside. You do not do this because you feel you want to, but because
I'm asking you to, and you are prepared to go along wit h me without
yet knowing where this will lead. So welcome to the opposite of improvisation: earlier you made a gesture of your own choice, now you are
doing one that is imposed. Accept doing this gesture without asking
yourselves ' What does i t mean?' i n an intellectual and analytical
manner, otherwise you will remain on the outside. Try to feel what it
provokes in you.
(Brook 1993: 69)
Here the physical attitude is defined f rom the outside, then projected
inwards. Participants are invited to 'listen' and experience the inner associations thus triggered, wit hout t ry ing t o decipher o r impose conceptual
signification; so 'outside' refashions 'inside'. However, once i t has been
allowed t o resonate, and is both 'heard' and accepted, a fresh imaginal
response arises within the actor, which in turn informs the external physical
attitude. As Brook explains, this bridging of inner and outer constitutes a
moment of openness in which energy circulates freely — in other words, a
moment of transparency:
Something is given to you from the exterior, which is different from the
free movement you made previously, and yet if you assume it totally, it
is the same thing, it has become yours and you have become its. T h e
true actor recognises that real freedom occurs at the moment when what
comes from the outside and what i brought from within make a perfect
blending.
(Brook 1993: 69)
Perception and reception now become active and creative, rather than
passive. Inner/outer, subject/object and structure/freedom are n o w i n
dynamic coexistence, rather than being mutually exclusive (as they are so
often assumed to be). Whereas a great deal of conventional acting is constituted by adding gesture to feeling, or vice versa, Brook looks for a state of
responsive connectedness where feeling and gesture are indivisible and
synonymous. I f acting comprises t he process o f making t he 'invisible'
visible, the exchange between inside and outside needs to be two-way and
continuous.
Production
The desired confusion of inner and outer, invisible and visible, is one of the
cornerstones of Brook's preparation of actors frotht he MarattSadeth The Man
Who. For example, during an intensive study period in the preparation of
The lk, members of the group copied the postures of members of the I k
tribe, as recorded in documentary photographs. These postures were recreated i n painstaking detail, wi t h the actor 'listening' t o information
provided by the physical form. Whils t others observed and corrected, the
actor would then improvise the action or movement immediately preceding
or following the instant captured in the photograph. Through this highly
disciplined form of 'outside-in' improvisation, where the precise still-point
Of a photograph would be passed through as i f it were one frame i n a
continuum, actors were able to access internal responses and echoes outside
the limitations of personal biographical experience As Brook remarks:
This was a far cry from what is usually understood by 'free improvisation'. We found it enabled European, American, Japanese, African actors
to understand something quite directly about playing starving people, a
physical condition none of us has ever experienced and therefOre. cannot
reach by imagination or memory.
(Brook 1987: 135)
For the production of Conference of the Birds, on the other hand, the group
worked wit h Balinese Topeng masks to facilitate a storytelling transformability that reflected the fable's rapid shifts in reality. Brook viewed these
particular masks as objective, archetypal manifestations of essential types
which would help actors clarify and crystallise t heir o wn impulses.
Extending their earlier study of the physiological attitudes of the Ik, the
actors scrutinised and manipulated the masks at arm's length (like Balinese
performers); then, at the moment of putting masks on, they would modify
their own facial expression in the direction of the mask's physiognomy. I n
this way, actors aimed to make intimate skin contact with 'the face of a very
strong, essential type' (Brook 1981: 63). Paradoxically Brook conceives of
such masks as 'anti-masks that uncover, offering 'a soul-portrait, a photo of
what you rarely see.. .an outer casing that is a complete and sensitive reflection of the inner life' (1987; 62). Potentially these masks — like all such
external stimuli employed to provoke internal movement — are both transforrriative agents o f understanding f or t heir wearers and 'lie-detectors'
amplifying dissonances in circuits and flows:
A mask is two-way traffic all the time; i t sends a message in, and
projects a message out. I t operates by the law of echoes; i f the echochamber is perfect, the sound going in and the one going out are
188 Lorna Marshall and David Williams
Peter Brook 1 8 9
reflections; there is a perfect relation between the echo-chamber and the
sound; but if it isn't, it's like a distorted mirror.
(1987; 63)
Similar processes were employed in preparing the production of The Man
Who. Through first-hand observation of, and contact wit h, patients in a
Parisian hospital, the small, collaborative team involved i n the project
evolved detailed physiological impressions of the symptoms of particular
neurological conditions. By imitating in detail the external forms of internal
states, the actors' imaginations were activated. Recently, Brook has described
a moment i n the production's fi rst public run-through that seems an apt
summation of our discussion of certain core components in Brook's practice:
inside/outside, transparency, distillation, immediacy, the invisible network:
There came a moment when I felt we had found a link wit h what we
had attempted in Africa when we had first put a pair of shoes on the
darpet in front of the audience to establish a common ground. In The
Man Who, the Pair of shoes was replaced by a table, a candle and a box
of matches. Yoshi Oida came to the table, lit the candle wit h special
concentration and then for a long time gazed intently at the flame. Then
he blew it out, took another match, lit the candle and blew it out again.
As he started once more, I could feel t he tension i n the audience
increasing. The audience could read into the simple actions far more
than they apparently expressed;... it understood directly what was going
(Brook 1998; 223-4)
Finally, let us return to the notion of the actor as 'team-player'. We have
already seen how part of the actor's preparation focuses on amplifying sensitivity towards fellow actors. This 'tuning' in turn support's their ability to
meet what is required of them in an ensemble of storytellers. Yoshi Oida
uses Brook's sporting metaphor to describe collectivist ethics and practices
of storytelling in The Mahabharata:
As in Conference of the Birds, we were a team of storytellers... [Brook)
used the image of football to help us understand what he wanted. As if
the play were a game of football, there were twenty-two team members
and one ball, the ball being the story. Since we were all on the same
team, it didn't matter who played which part, or if you changed characters in the middle. Together we told one story, keeping one ball in play.
In order to continue telling the story, you had to be ready to pick up the
ball when your scenes arrived.
(Oida 1992: 172)
4
Figure 9.2 L e Mahabharata at the Bouffes du Nord, Paris, 1985
Source: 'Photo, Michel Dienzaide
Note: An archery contest. Bamboo sticks are used to suggest weapons and to construct a
dynamically layered space. The actor-storytellers aim to produce an energised depth of field,
rather than an absolute uniformity.
However, the imperative to 'pick up the ball' goes beyond training, rehearsal
and even onstage performance. Oida has also described how actors did
not stay in their dressing rooms during performances of the Mahabharata.
Instead, they would stand in the wings, watching and listening to the way
in which a sequence was unfolding prior to their entrance. In this way, they
could sense how to adapt their entrance and performance in order to keep
the 'ball' in play (Oida 1992: 173). So the necessity for connection to 'the
'invisible network' even affected actors' behaviour offstage.
Therefore, one can see how the notion of a dynamic relationship between
the inside and the outside ('transparency') manifests itself at many different
levels of the creative process — from a sensitising of the individual actors to
their own impulses and those of others, t o methodologies f or revealing
hidden layers of texts, and for enabling character transformation that is not
merely reduced to personal biography. It also influences particular choices of
tools and artistic forms, both in rehearsal and in performance. The masks,
for example, precisely enact Brook's propositions concerning 'transparency'
and the 'invisible network'. The way
, i n of
aspects
w his
h company's
i c h
performances is characteristic of Brook's pragmatism.
s uConcepts
c h are only ever sanctioned in terms of usefulness; and more
c o n c e p t s
p
e
r
m
e
a
t
e
a
l
l
190 L o r n a Marshall and D avi d Williams
often than not wit h Brook, they arise from working processes, rather than
bei ng imposed upon them .
Notes
1 F or a detailed discussion o f the characteristics o f ' rough theatre' and ' hol y
theatre', and their conjunction i n a prismatic total i ty Br ook calls 'immediate
theatre', see Brook (1968).
2 For details of all of the CIRT's work since 1970, w i th extensive bibliographies,
see Bann (1991), H unt and Reeves (1995), and Williams (1992).
3 I n conversation in 1986, Brook described the quality he most admired in one of
his actors, Maurice BelliCh911, in terms of 'lightness'. This quality can be understood thr ough Paul Valery's suggestion that one should be l i ght as a bird, not
l i ght as a feather'. In other words, one must recognise and bear the substantive
weight of what i t is one enacts, its gravity; one must remain present, engaged
and embodied in the doing that takes us into the world — but with a lightness of
torich that is buoyant and playful, that enables one not to be encumbered or
consumed, but to take off; to move on, to be 'free'.
4 FOE an analysis of the workings of this storytelling model i n performance, see
•David 'Williains (1991), in particular pp. 117- 92.
Bi bl i ogr aphy
Banu, Georges ( 1991) Peter Brook, de Timon ("Athena ci La Tempete, Paris: Flarnmarion.
Brook, Peter (1998) Threads of Time: A Memoir, London: Methuen.
—
(1995) There Are No Secrets: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre, London: Methuen..
—
(1987) The Shifting Point, London: Methuen.
—
(1981) 'Lie and Glorious Adjective', Parabola 6, 3 (August).
—
( 1978) ' Lettr e I une etudi ante anglaise', i n Shakespeare, Timon d'Atheries
(adapted by Jean-Claude Carriere, 1974), Paris: CICT.
—
(1973) Br ook at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (workshop sessions tr anscribed by Sally Gardner), September—October. unpublished, tmpaginated; held
in the CICT archives.
—
(1968) The Empty Space, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
H unt, Al ber t and Reeves, Geoffrey ( 1995) Peter Brook, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Oida, Yoshi, with Marshall, Lorna (1)92) An Actor Adrift, London: Methuen.
—
(1997) The Invisible Actor, London: Methuen.
Smith, A.C.11. (1972) Orghast at Persepolis, London: Eyre Methuen.
Trewin, John C. (1971)Peter Brook: A Biography, London: Macdonald.
Williams, David (ed.) (1992)Peter Brook: A Theatrical Casebook, London: Methuen.
—
(ed.) (1991) Peter Brook and the Afahabbarata: Critical Perspectives, London and
New York: Routledge.
10 Grotowski's vision of the..
actor
The search for contact
Lisa Wolfird
Jerzy Grotowski is arguably one of the most influential figures in the development of experimental theatre and actor training techniques over the past
thirty years. Whilst only a relatively small number of people had the opportunity to witness the productions of the Laboratory Theatre or to undergo
extended apprenticeship wit h Grotowslci or the actors of his company, the •
techniques of performance training that these artists helped to develop have
been widely disseminated through print sources as well as through workshops, productions and classroom teaching. 'Unfortunately', as Peter Brook
observes, 'this ultra-rapid diffusion has not always gone through qualified
people, and around the name of Grotowsld – like a rolling stone – have
come t o attach themselves, t o graft themselves, all kinds of confusions,
excrescences and misunderstandings' (in Schechner and Wolford 1997: 379).
In a somewhat more acerbic tone, Thomas Richards relates that he is
aware t hat many people have experienced 'Grotowski •workshops'
conducted by someone who studied with Grotowski in a session of five
days, for example, twenty-five years ago. Such 'instructors', of course,
often pass on grave errors and misunderstandings. Grotowslci's research
might be mistakenly construed as something wild and structureless,
where people throw themselves on the floor, scream a lot, and have
pseudo-cathartic experiences. Grotowski's connection to, tradition, and
his link to Stanislavsld, run the risk of being completely forgotten or
not taken into account.
(1995: 4)
The phenomenon t o which both Brook and Richards allude has serious
implications, and I would not argue against their assertions that misrepresentations o f Grotowslcits wo r k are magnifi ed b y dubious modes o f
dissemination.
A tendency to emphasise the experimental aspects of Grotowsld's work
wit h t he Laboratory Theatre o r t o focus on selected elements o f the
company's aesthetic (e.g. the extreme physicality of the actor's work, the
non-naturalistic style of presentation, or the ritualistic aspects of the group's •